Process of manufacturing iron alloys.



i UNITED @TATE% PATENT enonsn M. convoconnssns, or new roan, n.

PROCESS OF MANUFACTURING IRON ALLGYS.

No Drawing.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, GEORGE M. CoLvoco- Rnss'ns, a citizen of the United States of America, and residing at New York, in the county of New York and State of New York, have invented new and useful Improvements in Processes of Manufacturing Iron Alloys, of which the following is a The ores to which I refer are more par ticularly those which are referred to as nickeliferous pyrrhotite with chalcopyrite and are found most abundantly in the 8nd bury District of Ontario, Canada, in other sections of Canada, and in certain districts of the United States and of Norway, and to a lesser extent in other countries. The furnace slags from smelting these ores'haveheretofore been run to waste or in some cases, used for railroad ballast or-road ma terial replacing crushed stone forthese purposes, and in a few instances, these slags Specification of Letters Patent.

Application filed .Tune 19, 1913. Serial No. 774.,611.

have been used in the manufacture of cement. Up to the present timenone of the experiments which have been made in smelting the slags have resulted in the manufacture of a commercially valuable metallic product.

As examples of the ores from which are obtained the slags which I propose to treat. according to my invention, .I may mention the followlng composltlons:

N0. 1, N0 2, 1V o, 9, basic. medmm. mlmous. Iron, Fe. 56% 46% v Sulfur, s. 29% 25% 20% Nickel, Ni. 1. 5% 2% 2. 5% ripper-flu ..4% .5% 1% ca, s1 10% Y 20% 32% Magnesia, MgO.

Lime, CaO. Small varying quantities. Alumina, AlzQg.

These ores are according to the present commercial practice, roasted to remove a portion of the sulfur and then smelted wlth .it is purified by Patented Aug. Ill, 19114.

flux in water jacket blast furnaces or in reverberatory furnaces similar to those used in copper smelting, whereby the greater part of the copper and nickel are combined with thesulfur in a matte and a portion of the iron together with small ercentage of copper and nickel, a little sul ur and the greater part of the silicon and non-metallic elements are separated out as a slag. By manipulating the charge of the blast or re verberatory furnace in asuitable manner, I can, if desired, produce a foul slag that is, one containing more nickel and copper than has been found economical to make in the past and containing also as large a ercentage of iron as metallurgically feasible and from this foul slag I can produce an iron alloy containing more nickel and copper than in the alloy made from the clean or ordinary slag.

Examples of the slagwhich I propose to treat are as follows "No. 1, clean. No. 2, foul.-

Iron, Fe. 118% Sulfur, S. 1.50% 2.00% Silica, Si.02- 30. 00% 25. 007 filumina, 1.2) g p.053? agnesia, g o .5 0 .Lime, C250. 1 2.50% 2. 00% Cop el, Cu. 0.25% 0.50% N e1, Ni. 0 40 1.00%

' By my process I make an iron-nickel-copper-alloy and a nickel-copper-alloy-steel direct from these slags. I run the slag (preferably in the molten or heated condition) into an iron blast furnace of standard type and similar to those employed in iron smelting or into an electric shaft furnace and there smelt it with coke, limestone, and other flux into a ferro nickel-copper pig, which will. also contain a certain amount of impurities and if produced in the coke blast furnace it will also contain sulfur from 1% to 4%. The pig produced from this process, I transfer directly and preferably molten into an electric refining furnace where removing the excess silicon, practically all of the sulfur, and so much carbon as may be desired and transformed into a high-grade nickel-copperalloy-steel containing only such impurities as are usually foundin high-grade steels.

till

Fill,

Itltl The contentpf nickel-copper will vary in accordance with the slag mployed, but ingeneralfthe nickel content will be from 0.4

' tol%.; and the-copper .from 0.2%- to 2%.

added to produce above, and before fining furnace'along withthe pig.

In case the nickel and copper content'is too low additional nickel and copper as such may be added and in case the nickel and copper are in "excess more iron may be the desired alloy, the additional elements being charged in the re- The slags which are at present on the dumps of the old smelters" either run out from slag pots or granulated may be handled in a{ manner entirely similar to the smelting they maybe briqueted or heated to a molten state in re- 'tabularized areapproximately as f l verberatory-furnaces. a Examples of the'st'e'el made by my process r'ro'm"the"clean:"and foul slags above '1 It is 'not my. intention however, to limit my steel above. a i a great mechanical lu e -th s. i sfsup'erior to the t tfl he to the exact composition mentioned The steels made by this process have strength, and are very and industries. Steel #1 ordinary carbon steel and the same superior qualities as an ordinaryinickel-steel containing the same I shown in a test bar, may

.Iio

percentage of nickel as of combined nickel and copper in my steel. v

',Examples of the qualities of my steel as be cited as follows ' Steel, No; 1. Steel, No. 2. Yield point. i 51,000 60,500 :Maximums h. 71,500 89,000 '"Pereentelonga on. 22.5 28.5 Percent. reductlon 62.5 133.8

The treatment of the iron copper nickel sulfid ores inthe past has been of necessity wasteful and improvident sin'ce small percentages of' the nickel and copper were lost in the furnace sla'g w reverberatory furnace-slag and Bessemer v :fmethod .of smelting which originally converter-slag, all the iron was fiuxed .out of the ore and eventually wasted. The Bessemer converter slag; is in practice charged back again into the blast furnace and then resmelted so that in;the present all the iron in the ore is eventually lost while by my slag treatall' the iron including that .ment process,

adheres to the furnace ymatte is eventually recovered and forms the dustries, an mercial profit.

nucleus for the manufacture of a valuable fallo'y steel. thoroughly homogeneous in compositionand very. useful in the arts and ind which can be made with com- 'I. would, therefore, --'confiider that myproeess: valuable from the said metals to a composite hlle in the blast or conservation standpoint since it provides a method of utilizing the iron content of the nickel copper ores amounting on the average to 4Q%; of their-weight and also the small quantities of nickel and copper which are lost in the present method of treatment. Further; my process is of value as the sale of the alloy steel made from the slag will veryconsiderably increase are made by the companies nickel-copper iron 'ores and will thus-tend to permit the extraction and treatment oi a lower grade of this ore be handled with profit. I z 1 have used the term ir'on alloy in a broad sense to include steel containing vvarious percentages 'of carbon, the preferred product is an iron, nickel, copper, nickel-copper-alloy-steel.

reasons the difierent steps of my; process 'maybe carried out in'difierent places? For instances, the slag may be smelted at one other ,place -for re t e non-meslagg ng ofi most of the metallic ferro pig, tallic elements and reducing late the carbon and retaining throughout the process and in combination substantially all the iron,"nickel and copper the original slag. i 2. The process of a furnace slag containing iron, nickel, and copper to eliminate ments as silicates and .reduce the oxids of ig of iron, nickel and copper suitable for su 3. T e rocess of makin an iron 'alloy which inc udes smeltin w1th suitable flux an iron nickel copper s ag containing from 20 to 50% iron, from .2 to 2% nickel andv from 0.1 to 2% copper, and reducing the metallic oxids to a composite ig of iron, nickel and co per suitable for re g. 4. T e process of a steel whichfincludes simultaneous y smelting theoxids of iron, nickelycopper and silica as they occur in a blaster reverberatory furnace slag all-in combination with asuitable flux to eliminate. the silica and other non metals if present, oxids totanickel, copper ferro refining the compos te' pi g .nickel copper-a lloy t'teeh 1- and-then n will be" obvious' that a. "economical place and [the resultantplg shipped to an- I making an iron alloy I in smelting a furnace slag copper and nickel with suit-1' able fuel and flux to form a copper nickel the non-metallic elealloy andto rieduce the .metallic 1 thancan at present 4 carbon alloy or a oxids contained in the slag and refining the resultant ferro nickel pig to remove the; remaining undesirable elementsand to re'guthat existed in I sequent refimng.

which comprises smelting an iron, nickel, produce a nickel-copper-steei alloy containcopper slag containing approximately from mg. approximatel' from .2 to 2% copper, 20 to 50% of iron, from .2 'to 2% of nickel from .4 to 4% nic el and u to 1% caribouo and from .1 to 2% copper so as to reduce the GEORGE M. COLV6CURESSES.

5 metallic compounds to a composite pig of Witnesses:

iron, nickel and copper and then refining Rom. S. ALLYN, the pig at a, sufliciently hightemperature to E. BRADFORD. 

